Beef Quesadilla with Salsa

Did you know that there are 5 basic tastes so it’s not just bitter, sour, salty and sweet anymore? The fifth taste was discovered by a Japanese national, hence the name UMAMI.

Cheese and Tomato are rich in Umami and being a woman who run on a cycle, I crave for Cheese and Tomato combo every bloody month.

That’s why I decided to make Beef Quesadilla with Salsa one fine afternoon.

Ingredients:
500 grams ground beef (rich in Iron, good for bleeding woman)
Eden’s grated cheese & quickmelt cheese (big mistake these two)
Chopped Tomatoes
Flour Tortilla
Onion, Garlic, Salt, Pepper, Calamansi Juice, Basil

Directions:
Season ground beef with juice from a Calamansi, salt, pepper and basil.

Saute ground beef in butter with onion and garlic until brown.

Using turbo broiler, put the cooked beef and the rest of the ingredients on a flour tortilla before topping it with another tortilla. Cook for 5 mintues in 220 Celsius. Serve with Salsa.

I was itching for mozzarella cheese really but the smallest quantity sold at the grocery was 2.3 kg at 1,330 pesos (23 Euro). And since I can’t have this expensive cheese, I went for the cheapest that I could find instead which was Eden’s grated cheese (i’m too lazy to grate cheese) and quickmelt cheese.

Both cheese unfortunately ruined my quesadilla because they don’t have a nice sticky quality when they melt. Quickmelt might melt fast but it was too runny for me.

Still, the best thing about this food is that everyone loves it no matter how ugly / soggy it looks. The next time I’ll have my bloody cravings though, I’ll try cheddar cheese instead.

Chicks in the Egg

Most Filipinos love to eat Balot or what a foreigner might call “Chicks in the Egg”.

Balot is some kind of nearly-developed embryo boiled egg and usually eaten with vinegar or salt. I have never eaten balut before in my life because it looked unbelievably disgusting to me (it isn’t sold at night time only without a good reason) but friend said that I should try at least once and recommended a 15-day balot.

I opened the egg and it tasted just like any normal boiled egg until I saw what looked like a fetus to me. Not wanting to throw up and hurt my friend or vendor’s feelings, I occupied myself by taking pictures before throwing it away.

Number of Balot my friend ate that night was 4 while her sister had 2.

I don’t know how they could love it.

Pudding From Belgium

Sister showed me how to make a pudding with ginger biscuits which I find relatively easy. Just mix 700 ml of milk with pudding powder in medium heat and as soon as it becomes sticky, put it in a cooling pan layered with ginger biscuits. Serve cold.

Since the entire family can’t afford to fly to Europe and experience Belgium, my sister bought a box of pudding powder as well as ginger biscuits for me to bring back to Philippines so I could make one at home for the rest of the family members to enjoy.

I asked mom how she find the pudding and she said that it’s delicious because it’s from Belgium after all.  This gives me an epiphany. I would like to try my hand on cooking because I loved and missed the way meals were served in my sister’s house (made me feel as if I’m in a restaurant) so I’m just going to say these magic words: “Sister wants me to cook these foods that they are eating in Belgium”, and voila, everyone would be gaga over it right away and be full of praises over my cooking. Yippee.

That’ my hypothesis anyway.